PORT boss Liam Watson has confessed to having a mediocre record when it comes to taking on the league’s basement clubs.

On the way to championship success in 2005, his side slipped up 3-1 at rock-bottom Bradford Park Avenue after a six-match winning streak.

Southport also managed to lose at home to lowly Ashton United, a side who would ultimately win only eight games all season.

So the trend continued in Nottinghamshire in a dour goalless draw which saw Southport fail to muster a single shot on target.

The club’s hundredth nil-nil match in non-league football also wasted a great opportunity to pin back league leaders Tamworth, who have four more points though have played two further games.

Amid the tedium, as both sides laboured on a terrible playing surface, Port fans questioned whether this could, in fact, be the worst match they’d ever witnessed.

Fans Martyn O’Hara and Adam Stirling intimated that it was. “Nothing of note happened at all,” they said, while club statistician Rob Urwin commented on his website: “I was recently asked which is the worst Southport match I had ever watched, I have a new contender.

“This was a shocker beyond belief. Hoofball at its finest. Misplaced passes, mainly from the hoof, galore and not one shot on target all afternoon, the keeper never had a save to make.”

With Southport starting with in-demand winger Mark Duffy on the bench, it was down to Robbie Booth to provide the ammunition in a three-pronged attack with Steve Daly and Ciaran Kilheeney.

Kevin Lee spurned Port’s first chance of the game, rashly swinging a half-volley over the bar after his header from Moogan’s corner was blocked.

Hucknall hit back, with Gary Ricketts using his strong frame well to meet Laurie Wilson’s cross from the right, but only to direct his header straight at McMillan.

Southport’s best sight of goal came mid-way through the first half, when Booth scampered down the right, pulling the ball back to Moogan, who took a touch just outside the box before curling a placed shot narrowly wide.

Booth continued to be Port’s main outlet until his substitution in the second-half but struggled to control the ball as the pitch cut up.

The winger did well to make space on the right to deliver a looping cross toward Kilheeney, but Lindley managed to prod the ball out for a corner.

Watson threw three subs on around the hour mark as Port switched to 4-4-2 with McGinn and Duffy on either wing.

Port rallied and Robinson should have done better than to miscontrol when Daly broke from midfield to square the ball to him in a well-worked counter attack.

Hucknall had a flurry of corners in injury-time but McMillan stood firm to keep Port on course for the point.

Afterwards Watson revealed he never expected the game to be easy after Hucknall’s recent upturn in form, due to the appointment of new manager Bryan Chambers.

He said: “Since the turn of the year Bryan has come in has done a great job and he’s already got them organised. He’s a very, very experienced manager and they look a tough nut to crack.

“Today, the conditions didn’t help pitch-wise and the ball didn’t run.

“Neither keeper has a shot to save all 90 minutes. We had a little five minute spell when we had them penned in their box but it never resulted in a clear-cut chance.

“If anyone was going to win it I thought it would be us but it was a very, very difficult fixture.”

Last night, Southport travelled to Ellesmere Port to take on Vauxhall Motors in the Blue Square North. To find out how they got on, log on to www.southportvisiter.co.uk